Minutes

Sustainable Green Bay Task Force

Thursday, 9/6/2007

City Hall, Room 604

3:00 PM

 

Members Present:  Gary Delveaux, Ian Griffiths, Mayor Jim Schmitt, Andre Jacque, Annette Weissbach, Christine Fossen-Rades, Derek Lord, Jeff DeLaune, Jessica Garrels, John Miller, Luann Rudolph, Mike Keil, Ray Janssen, Rich Krieg, Mary Haupt

 

The meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m. by Co-chair Gary Delveaux.

 

1.      Introduction of new members.

Erik Hoyer of Silver Lake College was introduced and welcomed.  He indicated his areas of interest are transportation and energy.

 

2.      Progress report from subcommittee chairpersons.

Reports were given on the various subcommittees as follows:

 Land Use/Economic Development– Rich Krieg reported that they are getting close to finalizing the Sustainability Resolution that will be sent to City Council and plan to meet with Council members who would be supportive of the resolution.  Annette will broaden the resolution to include all subcommittees and will email the resolution to committee members for input. City Attorney Allison Swanson will review as well and make modifications.  Mayor Schmitt agreed with keeping the resolution broad, and said he expects to get Council support and will ask Ald. Celestine Jeffreys to put a communication into the Advisory Committee, and then it will go to the full Council, hopefully at one of the October meetings.  Mary Haupt will advise the committee when the Resolution will be going to the full Council.

 

Annette suggested the committee look at adopting becoming an eco municipality in the future as a next step, which she stated is more of a commitment.

 

Mr. Krieg said letters were sent to several developers encouraging LEED construction in the downtown area projects; Astor Place, Riverfront Lofts and the Daily Planet building.  Suggestion was made to have letters sent with building permits to encourage green building in residential, commercial and institutional building and for information to be accessible on the City’s and Sustainable Task Force websites.

 

Transportation – Derek Lord reported that the “Reserved for hybrid vehicles” parking signs are up, in the city hall lot and in parking ramps.  Bike racks have been placed on city transit buses; both of these initiatives were covered by the media.  Andre reported that by the end of the month all city transit buses will be fueled with bio diesel.  He said one issue with the FTA and the Federal funding is that we need to be certain that we have a properly certified vendor and said the City Purchasing Dept. has already bid it out. He stated that the bike trail is still in the budget and Peter Schleinz reported on existing trails & paths at the last meeting. He stated that the county is getting close to finishing the maps for the trail project.  Derek Lord said the city will act as an agent for financing for printing and distributing the printed maps. He indicated that they are currently looking for funding, trying to raise approximately $15,000 to cover printing costs, and are talking with the hospitals and someone in healthcare and fitness.  He said the maps will be distributed at the recreational centers and bike centers, for a nominal fee. There will also be an interactive, on line version.  Andre said the $876,000 grant from the state is in the DNR budget for the trail that the city is seeking to place on the west side of town running from Bond Street to the waterfront.

 

Water & Air – Luann Rudolph reported that the rain barrel event was very successful and there was an article in the paper on the presenter a couple of days prior to the event.  She stated that 140 attended out of 175 registratrants, and they received positive feedback with a request to hold the event again.  They may hold another event next spring in conjunction with Earth Week. She said if all the participants make a rain barrel, they will exceed their goal of 100 rain barrels.  Fox 11 covered the rain barrel event and ran the story twice.  Suggestions were made to do the same thing for composting and will consider partnering with the N.E. Wisconsin Master Gardners for an event.  Derek shared an informational brochure that was given out at the demonstration and that will be available at their table at the Energy Savings Day event in October, as well as their rain barrel. He credited Somerville Architects who designed and contributed to the printing of the brochures on re-cycled paper. Luann said this brochure has been distributed to Brown County and Downtown Green Bay Inc.

 

Christine Fossen-Rades reported on the pharmaceutical drive and said they are making progress but still are addressing a problem with disposal of the pharmaceuticals.  Wes Damro has gotten approval from Wisconsin Public Service to use their incinerator for disposal and they are waiting to hear from the DNR regarding passing the air permits. She indicated they are aiming this event for spring, possibly to tie in with Earth Week. She stated that they would like to hold this event in spring and fall each year, once they get the approval.  Derek Lord has the name of the contact at the DNR and can forward to committee members.

 

Derek Lord said the storm drain marker plan will be the next project, now that the rain barrel program is done.  Suggestion to contact Steve Davitilla at WPS who has already done an activity with area youth marking storm drains. Derek will contact him.  Derek stated that the discs are included in the storm water budget.

 

Energy – Jeff DeLaune reported that October is Energy Awareness Month and said Focus on Energy promotes compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL’s) in October by offering a $2 instant rebate and also do in house CFL bulb sales and have done one recently at Green Bay Dressed Beef.  Mr. DeLaune said they had been talking with KI about an in house light bulb event, but decided to make this a community wide event.  He explained a CFL Challenge where Mayor Schmitt will be asking organizations in the city to compete in this challenge, to sell the CFL bulbs in house.  He shared a packet of forms that will be mailed to the top 100 employers in Brown County, asking them to participate in this challenge and indicated that organizations will need to register for the event by September 19th.  He said a press conference will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 12th at 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall, to announce this challenge.  A representative from the State Office of Energy Independence will speak on the value of energy efficiency in the state, Green Bay Dressed Beef will talk about the value that they felt from their perspective, possibly someone from KI will attend and express their support, and a representative from Focus On Energy will provide some factoids on why this is good, benefit from this, etc.  Mr. DeLaune said the Chamber is emailing their members about the event and Lisa Prunty from WPS is handling media notification for this event. The challenge will conclude with an event on October 26th with Energy Savings Day which will be held at Bay Park Square.  He stated that through this challenge, the bulbs will be offered for sale for about $.99 each plus tax. Organizations will notify their employees about purchasing the CFL’s.  Organizations are being asked to respond by October 5th with a form indicating how many bulbs their organization wants and Focus on Energy will provide the bulbs. The money will be collected at the Energy Savings Day event on October 26th. A retailer will be at the event to sell the bulbs also. The Sustainable Green Bay Task Force will have a table at the event, and an awards ceremony will be held on October 26th at 4:00 where three awards will be given in three tiers, greater than 1,000 employees or members, 250-1,000 employees or members and 1-250 employees or members.  Within each of these tiers, they will give awards for greatest number of light bulbs sold, greatest number of employees or members participating, and greatest percentage of participants. 

 

Suggestion was made to recognize all participating organizations, which Mr. DeLaune said they are planning to do.  Luann said she will print a poster listing the participating organizations and thanking them for their efforts.  Mr. DeLaune said the benefit to employers is that they are making it easy for their employees to purchase the bulbs and helping them to save money, in addition to enhancing their public image.  He stated that in order for companies to have sales operations in Europe, they need to show their environmental performance.  He said that there is an economic multiplier since money saved will be spent in the community.  Mr. Griffiths said KI deserves recognition for initiating this event and recognizing that it could be much bigger than just their company.  L. Rudolph said the bulbs will be delivered in 6-8 weeks after the October 26th event, adding that WPS has offered the use of warehouse space to store the bulbs and offered some vehicles to assist with delivery.  She said they will be looking for help in delivering the bulbs.

 

Annette brought up having a used bulb collection site at the event.  Derek said mercury is an issue and they had talked about this.  Wes Damro was invited to have information at the event as to proper disposal of used bulbs.  Focus on Energy is going to provide collection boxes at retailers for disposal of bulbs.  Jessica recommended that with bulb delivery, have information available as to proper disposal of used bulbs.  Suggestion was made to put up a couple of reserved Hybrid car signs for the October event.  Gary Delveaux said Preble High School is going to bring a hybrid car that they have made to the event.

 

Annette shared a trial they had done at the DNR building through an energy savings night where every employee turned everything off for an 8 hour period overnight. She said they had the normal day operation and then a day when they shut everything off and said there was only a difference of $5. when everything was shut off. She inquired if we tried this on October 26th for one night, would WPS be able to track the savings? It was agreed that this would be very difficult and would probably not be a significant amount.

 

It was agreed to have information from each committee at the Energy Savings event as well as people to staff the table and a representative from the City to collect the money for the bulb sales.

 

Mayor Schmitt expressed concern that the media needs to be engaged and must promote this challenge.  Mr. DeLaune said Lisa Prunty will contact the press regarding the press conference and the event and is contacting radio and Time Warner Cable about promoting the event.  Andre said he is working with Lisa regarding publicity and she has a good handle on it. The Mayor said possibly Fox 11’s morning show to keep it in the media, the week of the event would be good, a few live shots to promote awareness. Suggestion to interview Green Bay Dressed Beef as to why they did their event, how it went, etc. would give attention as well.  John Katers has a student who will be writing up a case study about the event after the conclusion of the event.  The student will include a fact sheet for other communities to use as a model.

 

Gary Delveaux said New York held a challenge in the schools and shared an article about Walmart promoting the event.  Press Conference will be held Wednesday, September 12th at 10:30 a.m. or 11:00 in City Council Chambers at City Hall. Task Force members will receive an invitation via email.

 

The Mayor summed up by saying that both the resolution and the Corporate Challenge are “big deals” and as the Mayor of Los Angeles told his residents: “Your little bit helps”.  Suggestion was made for the Chamber to put the event in the Business News, Friday Report and “What’s Up Downtown” and the Brown County Homebuilders will publicize the event as well.  Members will follow up on this. Luann will promote the Fair when she speaks to the Brown County Homebuilders on October 16th.     

 

3.      Discussion regarding new member recruitment efforts.

Derek Lord said he and Luann have been working toward getting an intern from UWGB to work strictly on Sustainable Task Force issues and asked members to let him know if they need help with research or anything.

 

4.      Date for next meeting (December 6th, 3:00).

After brief discussion, it was agreed to hold a meeting the next two months on October 11th and November 8th, in addition to December 6th.  All meetings are scheduled for 3:00 p.m. in Room 604 of City Hall.

 

Suggestion was made to promote using LED Christmas lights.

 

The meeting adjourned at 4:15 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Haupt